James Costa
Professor of sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology at Sorbonne Nouvelle university in Paris. My research focuses on the consequences of non-standardisation of minority languages in Scotland and Provence, and on how linguistic issues are fundamental in defining a new nationalist public sphere in Scotland. I teach semiotics, linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics.
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Given that Paris and Chicago are centers of scholarly vitality in their own respective lines of research and teaching, we propose to organize a bilateral conference exploring the socially framed and culturally focused study of language, particularly through analysis of language-in-use, on which such work rests. While there is, of course, continuing trans-Atlantic consciousness of such work through journals and other forms of publication, there has been little in the way of direct, systematic conversation in the setting of an international conference such as we are proposing. In particular, we propose to become familiar with each other’s modes of defining and working particular empirical issues, sensitively focusing on the backdrop of how different disciplinary connections and influences shapes such work in what is variously termed linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, anthropology or sociology of language, etc. We propose a three-day conference on the theme of “language as a lens on culture and society,” during which each invited participant from one or the other home milieu will present a piece of his or her current research, to be followed by a counterpart’s responsive commentary that initiates a more general discussion. We hope to come to understand the areas that promise future trans-Atlantic interlocution and research collaboration.
The very term “diversity” is now widespread, as the main topic of this conference suggests. Like all terms when they become dominant, it seems to have undergone a process of dehistoricization, leading to its being generally accepted uncritically. This presentation, however, draws on several years of ethnographic fieldwork among language advocates in France and Scotland to consider diversity as one possible regime of categorizing difference among many other possible ones (e.g. multiplicity, multitude, variation, standardization, regulation, or even chaos and disorder).
Not everything, however, may legitimately be counted diversity by the same social actors. In particular, while linguistic diversity has become a trope among language advocates worldwide but also with national and international institutions, not every aspect of speech may count as legitimate diversity. To what extent, for example, are those lects categorized as dialects liable to be considered under the regime of diversity? What would their exclusion or their inclusion entail, and for whom? Along similar lines, how are tensions between “variation” and “standardization” conceptualized in language advocacy movements? Can both aspects coexist under a regime of diversity?
In this respect, the case of Scots is particularly telling: recognized in Scotland yet usually categorized as dialect by speakers, unstandardized yet often used in literature, it is an unidentified linguistic object that invites us to reflect upon the elements that are deemed acceptable diversity in 21st century Scotland.